Every once in a while there comes a fight that has fans counting the days till it happens. Manny Pacquiao against Miguel Cotto is such a fight. The Firepower PPV title fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas has all the ingredients to make it the year’s most compelling contest.

Yuri Foreman, the unbeaten Brooklyn junior middleweight, has an interesting backstory — Jewish immigrant from Belarus who boxed for Israel in the world amateur championships, had a part (as a Russian no-holds-barred fighter) in the film Fighting, studying to be a rabbi. Can he now fulfill a dream by winning a world title? We get to find out on Saturday when Foreman challenges Daniel Santos for the WBA 154-pound title on the Pacquiao-Cotto show in Las Vegas.

The highlight of the Pacquiao-Cotto undercard on Saturday is without doubt the welterweight 10-rounder between Alfonso Gomez and Jesus Soto-Karass, which opens up the pay-per-view portion of the show. The fight should get the evening off to a rousing start for viewers.

The slow and careful buildup of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. continues with a 10-rounder against Troy Rowland, a 34-year-old from Michigan, on the Pacquiao-Cotto show in Las Vegas on Saturday. Chavez, a 130-pounder when he turned professional six years ago, has matured into a big, strong middleweight (the bout with Rowland has been at 160 pounds).

In the third bout of a triple-header featuring Filipino fighters in Las Vegas on Friday, bantamweight contender Z Gorres meets Colombian Luis Melendez in an all-southpaw match. This seems to be in the nature of a tune-up for Gorres before meeting Fernando Montiel in a rematch in the new year.

Tough 115-pounders meet in Las Vegas the night before the Pacquiao-Cotto superfight when Federico Catubay of the Philippines faces Mexico’s Juan Alberto Rosas in an IBF junior bantam title eliminator.

With Manny Pacquaio starring in the year’s biggest fight on Saturday it is appropriate that Filipino fighters are featured on Top Rank’s night-before show in Las Vegas (TV coverage on Azteca America).

Local favourite Jelena Mrdjenovich attempts to avenge a previous loss when she meets Ann Saccurato from New York State in a WBA female lightweight title fight in Edmonton on Friday — a bout between last-time losers.

THURSDAY UPDATE: Fight cancelled; it appears that Laleye made last-minute demands for more money; Hatton Promotions told him where to go — on an early flight home. You could call Rob Norton a late bloomer. The veteran from Stourbridge in the English midlands is 37, but he gave one of his best-ever performances in his last fight when he survived two knockdowns to defeat the three-time national amateur champion David Dolan in a gruelling struggle for the British and Commonwealth cruiserweight titles.

Attitude is important in boxing, not in the new interpretation of the word (as in “has attitude”, which apparently means to be provocative and challenging in manner) but in the context of attitude of mind.

After going through hell in his decision win over Glen Johnson last year, Chad Dawson knows what is in store when he defends his light-heavyweight title against the ageless veteran on HBO from Hartford, CT, on Saturday night.

In by far the most interesting fight on the Valuev-Haye supporting show on Saturday, unbeaten Finnish heavyweight Robert Helenius moves up massively in class when he takes on the seasoned and capable Ukrainian Taras Bidenko in an eight-rounder.

Beaten by Kermit Cintron in an upset six months ago, Alfredo Angulo finds himself in a world title bout on Saturday. He meets the unbeaten Harry Joe Yorgey for the vacant WBO interim junior middle title on the HBO show from Hartford that features the rematch between Chad Dawson and Glen Johnson.

In a fight where more than the usual number of possible outcomes dance in one’s imagination, Russia’s huge Nikolai Valuev defends his WBA heavyweight title against Britain’s colourful David Haye in Nuremberg on Saturday.

Sometimes an upset is so shocking that the boxer who wins finds himself the underdog in the rematch. This happened in fights such as Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson II and in the return bouts between Vernon Forrest and Shane Mosley and Nehomar Cermeno and Cristian Mijares. The feeling in the boxing fraternity was that the favourite would get it right second time around, which is the prevailing sentiment when Sam Sexton meets Martin Rogan in a rematch for the Commonwealth heavyweight title in Belfast on Friday, with Sky televising in the U.K.

After his impressive, upset win over Vic Darchinyan in July, Joseph Agbeko is back on Showtime on Saturday night to defend his IBF bantamweight title against mandatory contender Yonnhy Perez, and the fight should be a good one.

The lightweight title supporting bout between Antonio DeMarco and Jose Alfaro should set the stage nicely for Saturday’s Showtime main event between Joseph Agbeko and Yonnhy Perez. DeMarco, the tall Mexican southpaw, is known for putting on crowd-pleasing fights — and so is Nicaraguan Alfaro, a former WBA champion seeking to reclaim a championship. (The two meet for the WBC’s vacant interim title.)

Recycled heavyweights meet on Saturday’s show in Las Vegas when DaVarryl Williamson takes on Ray Austin in a WBC elimination match. It’s surprising to think of either getting the chance to box for a championship after Austin’s second-round collapse against Wladimir Klitschko and Williamson’s dreary defeat against Chris Byrd. Promoter Don King is giving them what must be surely a last opportunity and now it is up to the fighters. If they turn in a 12-round maul, the prospect of the winner getting a title fight would be seen as an embarrassment, but if one of them can win in exciting style he will have made a case for himself — well, sort of.

Promoter Frank Warren is billing it as “The Talk of the Town”, and Friday’s fight in Liverpool between Paul Smith and Tony Quigley is the biggest all-Merseyside bout in a long time. Quigley won the British super middleweight title by stopping Liverpool rival Tony Dodson in the last round of an excellent fight in March.

THURSDAY UPDATE: : Hector Camacho Jr. came in 5 1/2 pounds overweight for his 10-rounder against Luis "Yory Boy" Campas, a match that takes place on Friday in El Paso. This means that Camacho had a seven and a half pounds weight advantage at the weigh-in. Is it going to be an advantage, though? Camacho came in overweight fore his fight with Omar Weis seven years ago, gave a dismal performance and was clearly outpointed. Campas looked in good trim at 152 pounds. I'll leave the preview as originally written but what we now have is a middleweight against a junior middleweight — who knows whether Camacho's extra poundage is going to work for or against him?

Is boxing dying? Not in Europe, it isn’t, nor, anywhere, for that matter, when a fight is made that grabs the public’s interest. Such a fight takes place in Lodz on Saturday, billed as “Poland’s Fight of the Century”, when erratic Andrew Golota takes on Tomasz Adamek, who has relinquished his IBF cruiserweight title to test the heavyweight waters.

Former world title challenger Al Seeger, whose last fight ended in tragedy, returns to the ring in the ShoBox co-feature against Puerto Rican Victor Fonseca on Friday. In Seeger’s last fight, his opponent, Benjamin Flores, died from a brain injury five days after being stopped in the eighth round by Seeger in their NABF super bantam title bout in Dallas last April. Seeger defends the 122-pound title on Friday.

Overachiever Chris Edwards, probably the best fighter in the word with a break-even record (13 wins, 13 losses, three draws), defends his British flyweight title on the big Bolton show on Friday and faces a tough night against Shinny Bayaar, a Mongolian who has just received his British naturalisation.

Jamie Moore, who has really come in to his own in the past year with a string of impressive wins, defends his European light-middleweight title against experienced and crafty Ryan Rhodes in the main event on promoter Frank Maloney’s show in Bolton on Friday.

Ian Napa, considered one of the finest technical boxers in Britain at any weight, seemed to grow old overnight in his last fight when he was soundly outpointed by the French Olympic representative, Malik Bouziane. The widely scored defeat cost Napa his European bantamweight title and raised speculation whether he is now, at 31, a fighter in decline.